WRENN- ALDRICH DRIVE-OFF SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12

Wed, 11/27/2013 - 4:22pm -- Anonymous (not verified)

It’ll be number one against number three when North America’s leading dash winner, Ronnie Wrenn, Jr. locks horns with Bruce Aldrich, Jr., third in wins on the continent, on Thursday December 12 at Monticello Raceway.

The 26 year old Wrenn, from a top racing family in Michigan, has blossomed into a world class driver and his 631 driving victories leads all reinsmen. And Aldrich, 43, in his first year of just driving, has already booked 566 winners and is enjoying the best season of his career. Career wise Aldrich has driven 4671 winners while the youthful Wrenn has already passed the 1000-win plateau and has 1242 wins in just four seasons in the sulky.

Aldrich will have hometown advantage as Wrenn will be coming in from Northfield Ohio. Both are leading drivers at their respective tracks, Aldrich at Monticello Raceway and Wrenn at Northfield Park.

“This has the makings of an interesting competition, not only for the drivers, but for the betting public,” Aldrich said.”There’s no doubt that good drivers will be in competition but there are factors that may be beyond our control especially in the eight horse fields. And I can tell you Monticello has a good driving colony and we will not only be challenged by them but we’ll have to keep an eye on one another.”

Last week when Wrenn was asked if he’d drive the card against Aldrich he said, ” Yes but I’d like to know how the drives are selected.”

“We have a tentative plan on how to make the competition as fair as possible,” offered Eric Warner, the Mighty M’s director of racing. ““In an effort to keep the scales from tipping one way or the other we intend to have the drivers make alternate picks on the 13 race card.

“After the December 12th program is drawn we’ll flip a coin and the one who calls it correctly will have first choice of the horse he wants to drive in race one while the other get his selection after that. Then Aldrich picks first in the next race and Wrenn second and we’ll alternate throughout the entire card.

“Someone said to me that they’ll pick the favorites to which I replied that here at Monticello just over 35 per cent of favorites win. That leaves room for everybody.”